In a ceremony that bridged four centuries and two of the city's oldest burial grounds, some of New Orleans' earliest inhabitants were laid to rest Saturday (April 18) under gray skies threatening rain. In true Crescent City fashion, it was an event both joyous and solemn, as history buffs and the faithful gathered at St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 to mark the interment of 15 unknown colonial-era New Orleanians in a crypt donated by the Archdiocese of New Orleans.

Back in the 18th century, the remains were originally buried in a cemetery on St. Peter Street, one of the city's oldest known burial grounds. That cemetery stopped being used in the late 1780s. Over the centuries since, the land -- bounded by St. Peter, Burgundy, Toulouse, and North Rampart streets -- had been redeveloped.

In 2011, the bodies were discovered in the backyard of French Quarter resident Vincent Marcello's home as he was getting ready to install a swimming pool.

The remains were likely those of slaves, as the St. Peter Street cemetery was the primary resting place for free and enslaved alike in early New Orleans.

On Saturday, a Mass in honor of the dead was held at St. Augustine Church. Afterward, a second-line made its way to St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. About 200 people fell in line behind the Treme Brass Band and the Black Men of Labor as they marched toward the North Rampart Street cemetery.

"After we started to realize what we had at the forensics lab," said Dr. Ryan Gray, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of New Orleans, "we began to think about to think about ways to reinter them and bring attention to the cemetery at the same time."

The Mass and ceremony acknowledged the nameless dead for their contributions to the city. "These people interred at the St. Peter Street cemetery played a crucial role in the creation of the city of New Orleans," a pamphlet distributed at the Mass said. "Africans and African-Americans, both free and enslaved, provided the labor that built much of the colonial city, and their intellectual and cultural contributions to its unique heritage -- and to America's heritage -- is still being recognized."